THE PHEASANT 287 



to post them a good distance from the covert, so as to 

 give them a chance of getting good birds instead of 

 the nasty skinners which they are sure to get if they 

 are close to the covert side. 



These three methods of " showing " the birds may 

 serve to illustrate the cardinal principles we have 

 enumerated, and will suggest to the keeper who is 

 ignorant of the matter the advisability of modifying 

 methods which are now regarded as prehistoric. He 

 will find the details of each of these methods described, 

 with some slight modifications, in Mr. Stuart Wortley's 

 epoch-making volume on The Pheasant. Even where 

 there is no artificially arranged flushing-point, the birds 

 may be so driven as to secure them being flushed from 

 a higher plane than that on which the guns stand. 

 For instance, where the covert is lying on the side of 

 a hill or gentle slope, the birds should be flushed from 

 the highest point, never the lowest. In those cases 

 where coverts are very much on the same plane, and 

 no particular flushing-pointis used, it might besuggested 

 that a stretch of wire-netting twenty-five yards from the 

 end of the covert will make the birds rise, and have 

 time to get above the tree tops before they reach the 

 guns. 



Whenitisabsolutelyimpossible to conductpheasant- 

 shooting on these scientific principles, from want of 

 suitable coverts or from other reasons, it might be as 

 well that near to the end of the coverts three parallel 

 rows of wire-netting be arranged, with an opening in 



